


Skimming Stones Across the Atlantic (I hope they find you)

by twinpeaksrocktoss



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Brief mentions of suicide, Comfort, Love Letters, M/M, sad charlie gets the support he needs, skimming stones are gay culture now, talking about feelings, tiny mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 12:44:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14593317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinpeaksrocktoss/pseuds/twinpeaksrocktoss
Summary: Charlie Talks About His Feelings ~ siri make title card





	Skimming Stones Across the Atlantic (I hope they find you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swampthot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swampthot/gifts).



After the airport, Charlie’s quiet _‘I don’t wanna talk about it’_ had been enough to keep the gang off his back for a while. Charlie guessed that a big part of their seemingly respectful distance was the fact they probably had absolutely no idea how to react anyway. 

But, of course, they just couldn’t resist the curiosity for long. 

“Charlie?” Dee actually knocked on his apartment door for probably the first time in her entire life. “You in there?”

He dragged himself out of his blanket cocoon and let her in, clutching the letter to his chest, “what’d you want, Dee?”

“Well, uh, you doing okay?” She hooked her thumbs through her belt loops and surveyed his apartment disapprovingly. “Because in the car you were... like super quiet, then Dennis said we’d all meet at the bar to talk, and you never showed,”

“To be honest, Dee,” Charlie shifted under her scrutiny. “I wasn’t really listening to Dennis,”

“We’re just worried about you,” she looked genuinely concerned, staring at the letter he’d practically crushed into his chest. “You wanna talk to like Mac or whatever?”

“Mac? Seriously?” Charlie pulled his blanket closer around his shoulders, feeling very small next to Dee in her high heeled white sandal things. 

“Well I don’t know! You guys are like, best friends or whatever and Charlie, I did major psychology-“

“You didn’t finish it, though-“

“-and if that taught me anything, it’s that you gotta talk to someone about these things, or-“

“Or what, Dee? What? I’ll be all sad ‘n’ shit? You guys never, ever talk about your feelings! Like ever! Why do _I_ have to?” Charlie could feel himself shaking a little, keeping his arms clamped around his middle under his blanket cape to stop them from gesturing wildly. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about _him_ , how he would draw every last shred of repressed fear and sadness out of Charlie with his carefully chosen words and soft touches in the night when Charlie couldn’t stop seeing the Nightman. 

“Whenever something bad happens to us, and that has been some terrible shit over the years, Dee, we just shut up and move on. No one talks about things, and if you do-“ he stopped himself, thoughts of those warm eyes gently regarding him from across a restaurant table or from the other side of a plush hotel bed. “Why do I have to talk, Dee? Why can’t I be allowed to just shut up and move on?”

“Because we both know that’s not what you’d do, alright!” Dee was frustrated, but clearly trying to keep her cool. 

“Really? You think?” Charlie knew being sarcastic meant being childish in that moment, but it was either whining or sobbing and he was definitely sure which option he’d be going for. “What you reckon I’m gonna try ‘n’ what, kill my damn self?”

“Charlie-“ she was about to reach out to him, but stopped herself for some reason, acrylic nails curling back into her palms instead of resting against his arm. “Maybe don’t talk to one of us, one of the gang; would that be easier? This- _this thing_ , it’s clearly important to you and it’s fucked you up real bad,”

“You won’t even say it,” Charlie shook his head and trudged over to the window sill where he’d carefully laid out the thin, flat rocks that had been tucked into the envelope. 

_Skimming stones_ , he’d called them, not skipping rocks like Mac used to. 

_British people call them skimming stones, Charlie._

Smoothing his fingers across the gifts calmed him a little, but he was still suitably pissed. 

Why was it so hard for the gang to actually accept that maybe, just maybe, Charlie went out and got something wonderful, something purely his, without them knowing? Without them around to ruin it for him?

“Maybe you can’t say it, Dee,” he shrugged, anger giving way to resignation as quickly as it had sprung itself on him in the first place. “You can’t say what _this thing_ was out-loud - that’s why I can’t talk to you guys, you know?”

“Then don’t,” she sighed. “But please, Charlie, find someone you can talk to because this-“ he turned around to see her kicking at an abnormally large pile of dirty shirts and beer cans -“this isn’t healthy,”

He nodded as she headed for the door, still holding the letter just over his heart. 

“And for the record, Charlie,” she paused in the doorway, but didn’t turn to face him. She was obviously wrestling with whether or not she should carry on with her sentence. This surprised Charlie a little as Dee had never been the most likely to carefully choose her words before she said them. “We’re worried because you’ve tried to kill yourself over less,”

“I’m not gonna do that, Dee,” he said quietly, an unspoken thank you passed between both of them, before she wordlessly left down the corridor, heels clicking as she went. 

Charlie closed his door and leaned against it, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. 

He flattened out the crumpled letter and reread his favourite part. It brought a smile to his face, chasing away the sorta pissed off kind of low mood he’d been cocooned in. 

He looked over to his carefully laid out stones and softly remembered one of the rare moments in his shitty life when he felt perfectly content. 

_“When I’m with you my heart kinda feels like a skipping stone,”_

_“You mean a skimming stone?”_

_“No, man, we talked about this, they’re skipping stones because they skip across the surface of the water, dude,”_

_“They skim, Charlie. This is skipping,” he danced his middle and forefinger across Charlie’s bare arm in a similar rhythm to someone jauntily walking. It had tickled, but not enough for Charlie to ask him to stop. Instead, he rolled himself on top of the other man and the sudden, intense eye contact between the two of them really made his heart feel like a skimming stone._

The memory washed over him, gently pushing Dee’s words so they sank in; he needed to talk to someone, or he’d go crazy. Either that or he’d be on the first jet across the ocean, heading for England and not looking back. 

Charlie knew which option terrified him the least, so shed his blanket, pulled on his shoes and headed out. 

**

Her door was _right there_. 

Charlie, about to knock his knuckles against her door, stalled and patted the skimming stone he’d tucked into his pocket, before squeezing his eyes shut to somehow reassure himself. 

He knew Dee was right, he needed to speak to someone, but definitely not the gang. Normally he’d go to Mac, but with the decidedly _gay_ nature of his current issue, perhaps Mac wouldn’t be the best dude to go to. 

The truth was, the gang generally didn’t have friends that weren’t each other. They had Artemis sometimes and maybe Cricket counted, but Charlie didn’t like talking to them anyway, let alone about how his heart felt like it was breaking into tiny, stupidly hopeful pieces. 

So Charlie knocked on the Waitress’s apartment door and felt tears pricking at the backs of his eyes. 

She opened the door slightly, around nine chain catches keeping it securely in place, poking her head round to see who’d disturbed her Sunday morning. 

“Jesus Christ Charlie, no! Get out, go away!” She started to yell, crossing her arms over her chest even though the door wasn’t open wide enough for him to see much other than half her shoulder and her very angry looking face. 

“Please could I- I need to talk to you about something,” Charlie said, quietly. His face felt hot and tears were definitely filling his eyes. 

Something in her expression softened a little, but she was still skeptical. 

“You want me to let you into my apartment, to talk?” She raised an eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe. 

“I think you’ll wanna hear what I have to say as much as I gotta to say it,” he admitted, hoping his tired, raw honesty would be enough to persuade the woman who owed him absolutely nothing to listen to him. 

“Okay,” she said after long consideration, “but if you try anything I have a taser,”

She closed the door and Charlie heard the nine chains and various other security measures unlock. _Wow, he’d really made her paranoid, huh._

Charlie sat himself down on her purple sofa, nudging an empty vodka bottle on the floor. 

“Not a word,” she pointed at him harshly, stomping round a pile of cider cans similar to the one Dee had wrinkled her nose at in his apartment. 

“What about the fact that you’ve clearly fallen right of the w-“

“Thought you wanted to talk about something important, Charlie,” she wrapped her long, soft looking grey cardigan around herself and sat down in an armchair, as far away from him as she could reasonably get. “So talk,”

“You remember that guy I came into your work with? Like,” he tried to count the weeks, but got stuck so settled for waving his hand, “ages ago?”

“The creepy dude?” 

“The scientist,” Charlie corrected, but distinctly remembered her calling him creepy, so at least she’d got the right person. “But yeah, that one,”

“Sure,” she flicked her hair behind her ear and Charlie thought that to be honest, she was pretty, but not as perfect as he’d always imagined. “What about him?”

“We were... together,” Charlie felt his face heat up, so he avoided looking anywhere near the waitress. 

“Yeah you came to harass me at my work together, what’s your point?” 

“We were like, _together_ together, you know?” 

“Like, he was your carer? Or something? You said he was a scientist, right?”

“N-no, like-“

“C’mon Charlie, spit it out,”

“In love! Properly, I loved him, ‘n’ still do,” Charlie squeaked, hand gripping the skimming stone tucked into his hoodie pocket. He squeezed his eyes shut, before peeking them open to see the waitress’s wide eyed expression of pure shock. 

“ _Oh_ ,” something in her posture relaxed. 

Charlie could practically hear her brain processing that information, could practically see it colouring the memories of all her more recent interactions with him. 

He waited, blank and patient, for her to say something, but when she just continued to stare at him, open mouthed, he began to babble a little, “I wanna talk to you about it cos the gang don’t or _won’t_ understand and-“

“It’s okay Charlie,” she finally blinked, tiny smile curling her mouth. She looked softly at him, the same kind of openly concerned expression Dee just couldn’t shake when she was stood in his shithole apartment. 

“Is it?” He knew his voice was squeaky and grating, but she didn’t flinch. “I love him more than like I have ever loved anything or anyone or anywhere and he’s like so far away and I’m still here still in Philly where I’ll always be!” 

“You wanna go after him then?” She asked simply, as if he hadn’t just spewed his most heartfelt emotions, as if he didn’t feel hot and sick and uncomfortable. 

“Maybe,” Charlie flipped the stone in his pocket, letting the slowly warming surface calm him. “What if I go all the way across the ocean- like, all the way to England- just to find out he doesn’t love me as strong or like anymore or if he just loves me over here?”

“Why would you think that?” The waitress tucked her legs underneath her, settling more comfortably in her armchair, pulling a pretty patterned cushion onto her lap. 

“He wrote me a letter saying that he’d try to come back an' get a more permanent placement or something and that this isn’t the end,” Charlie wiped his sweaty palms against his jeans, willing himself not to cry, to keep it together. He felt so raw and exposed, like a lab rat, even though the waitress was just sat, listening to him, no judgement in her pretty eyes at all. “But if that’s true then why do I feel like my - my stupid, _dumb_ heart is fucking screaming?”

 

“If he said it’s not over then I’m pretty sure he still loves you Charlie; it’s just a bitch of a situation - it hasn’t ended,” she said, managing to be firm but also very careful. She spoke as if _of course_ she knew exactly what Charlie’s scientist was thinking. 

“Feels like all good things have ended and I’m just... still here,” Charlie shrugged, burying himself deeper backwards into the plush sofa cushions. 

“Wow,” she chuckled, but it wasn’t the mean kind of laughing Charlie feared he’d get from the gang if he ever opened up like this to them. Maybe not from Mac, but definitely, definitely Dennis. “You really fell hard didn’t you,”

Charlie found himself draw away from the threats of tears to sitting there with a dopey smile slapped right across his face, “I didn’t even know his name for like all our time together,”

“Wait what?” She laughed again, the kind of fond _‘oh, Charlie’_ laugh Dee would do whenever he showed off his grape eating skills to her and Mac when they shared shifts at the bar. “Charlie, how can you say you’re in love with someone if you don’t know their name?”

“I know it now, obviously, cos he signed his letter,” he pulled the folded sheets of paper out of his pocket and held it like it was the most precious thing in the world. 

“You brought it with you? Why?” She shifted forward in her seat, eyes back to their wide staring. The waitress reached out to take it, but hesitated. “Did you want me to read it to you?” She asked in the softest voice Charlie had ever heard her use. 

“Naw, I read it good , but I dunno, I thought it would help you understand, so you can maybe help me— help me to not feel like this,” he pushed the letter into her hands and sat back into the sofa, skimming stone clenched in his hand as she delicately unfolded the letter and began to eagerly read it. 

Charlie wondered if _he_ would mind the waitress reading his letter - of course, he’d left the most intimate pages under his pillow, but still, it felt like he was sharing something deeply personal with a woman the scientist wasn’t entirely fond of. 

“You want my advice?” She asked, eyes still following the lines of handwritten text across the final page. 

“That’s why I came here,” he huffed a laugh to try and hide how his breath caught when he tried to speak. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous.

“He’s clearly good for you, and he loves you very much, so you should go to him,” she sounded like a therapist, carefully choosing her words, keeping constant eye contact. 

“You sure?” He fiddled with the cuffs of his hoodie, cheeks very very red. “You don’t just wanna get rid of me?”

“Charlie, clearly you now know that what you thought you felt for me wasn’t real -“

“I’m so sorry, I was like looking for something that I thought was you but turns out it was just.. I’m into ... well science bitches, I guess,” 

The two of them laughed, probably the first time they’d genuinely, actually laughed together without the influence of drugs or alcohol. It was nice. 

“You really think I should go to England?” He asked, taking back the letter, slipping both the paper and the skimming stone back into his pocket. He peeled himself away from the sofa cushions and scuffed his way to the door of the apartment. 

“At least write him back,” she smoothed her hands down the cushion, kicking the same bottle Charlie had awkwardly rolled out of his way to the door. She’d been so nice to him, when he definitely needed it most and he wanted to repay her somehow. That would be no small task, he knew, but he’d try his damn best. 

“Okay,” Charlie smiled, already planning exactly what he’d write the second he got his hands on some coloured pens and paper. 

“You need help?” She stood up, following him to the door. “With the writing?”

“I think I’ve got it,” he grinned, rocking up onto his toes. “Thanks, though,” 

“This guy really is good for you huh,” she smiled. “Got you reading and writing,”

“Oh he’s the best,” Charlie flicked one of the door chains and watched it swing back and forth. Perhaps now she wouldn’t lock them all after he’d gone. He smiled at her before heading off down the corridor. 

“Hey Charlie?” She called after him, leaning against the doorframe as she’d done when he first arrived. 

“Yah?” He spun on his heel. 

“Thank you for trusting me, you know, with the letter,” she tucked her hands into the pockets of her cardigan. 

“S’okay, I’m sorry, for everything,” he scuffed his shoes against the carpet which was much nicer than the shit that coated the floors of his apartment block. 

“You know, I was so ready to tase you, but now a small part of me wants to hug you - only a very, very small part though,” the waitress said, watching Charlie hover awkwardly outside her apartment door. “Now go write your love letter, get outta here!”

Dee had been right, talking to someone was way better than shutting up and moving on. Even if he didn’t haul his ass onto the nearest plan to England, Charlie was gonna go home, write a letter of his own, maybe get Mac to check it over, write that beautiful name on the envelope and send the fucker. _Yeah_.


End file.
